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Monday, 11 June 2012

Challenge Excepted: South Korea

My next location was South Korea and the film, The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

Yes, this was inspired by that famous western, directed by Sergio Leone, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Just how my Year 6 Christmas play was, except that was called, The Good, The Bad and The Donkey.

At first glance the plot is quite complicated when its starts to get political but the basic plot is three guys trying to get a map that leads to treasure.

Set in 1930s in Manchuria or Northeast China, 'The Bad', an infamous bandit and hitman, is hired to steal a treasure map from a Japanese official who is traveling by train. But before The Bad and his gang can intercept the train, 'The Weird', a thief already aboard the train, robs the Japanese officials. Whilst taking money, jewels and the map, not knowing what it, The Bad and his gang board the train and terrorise the passengers. 'The Good', a bounty hunter, who has been in pursuit of The Bad, enters the scene and all havoc breaks loose.

It was a fantastic film! So many shoot outs and bust ups that were brilliant and very entertaining to watch. It felt like a true western genre film except 'The Weird' was the main character in this story, instead of the usual good or bad. The three major leads in the film all seem to know of each other by name and reputation while everyone around them was just there for the ride or to die.

Just as brutal and violent as you would expect any other western to be. Although there was one scene that was quite grim. A friend of The Weird is tortured by The Bad for information and that guy goes through a hell of a lot of pain and the horrible thing is, he really doesn't know anything.

All the actors were great, even though The Bad at times was over the top with his stares. The film was simply great fun to watch. If you're going to watch it look out for the familiar ending, it mirrors The Good The Bad and The Ugly's ending.